F is for Follow-up - Combat Plunder Post

Basically looking at the 'who are they' figures, I'm afraid it doesn't add much, but is a useful reminder of where we're at with these. I had a couple of other supporting images in Piacsa, so I've put a few up, at the end of the post.

 

This is a shot of the versions I was originally told were Galoob, and which are copies of the Galoob Micromachine smallies, or were pantographed-down for them, but there is no evidence to date that the 40mm versions were actually, ever sold by Galoob, however they are quite common as Realtoy, Daron or Sky Mark. I'm now pretty certain these came from whichever Chinese factory was supplying Galoob.

 

While this set is the softer copies, which I have pencilled in, with the minimal of circumstantial evidence as being from Pioneer, or whoever supplied Pioneer, given they were primarily a die-caster. Here in Imperial/Buddy L branding, we have also seen them as Stonegalleon and Woolbro/Toy Leader, while the smaller, unpainted copies, are more likely Pioneer. This is a poor shot, which I think must be the seller's picture of a set I bought, as . . .
 

. . . I have managed to scan the lining-card! You can see several of the firefighter figures which have come in with mixed lots, and some construction workers, I hadn't even made the connection on! The prone figure is not a Galoob sculpt.

 

Shipped into the UK by Titan, which puts Supreme in the frame too, but only loosely, they had their own sculpts, the larger Ackerman et all., set. I'll try to remember to do a follow-up or 'roundup' on them too, once the Chris donation posts are done.

 

The best way to understand it (or not!) is to click the Realtoy Tag, but it's all getting a bit confused, and I'll need to bring everything together in a larger post, with all the sets, and the many loose figures (no duplicates so far, due to three sizes, two materials, and a dozen or so plastic colours and/or paint-ways), set side-by-side.

 

And then, are the bigger (50/54mm) ones we saw from Greece (Zita Toys) also Pioneer or another supplier, the evidence is they are Pioneer, and they have some of the firefighter poses too. The fact that the rough, oblong based versions are now being found alongside the smoother, ovoid 'Galoob' bases, suggests one source for all bar the Realtoy, and what evidence we do have, is that Pioneer (or their supplier) may be that supplier?

 

Some more of the poorer copies of Marx's 45mm GI's, in two shades of green, I have a few of these too, somewhere! We looked at them quite early-on in the Blog's history, here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/l-is-for-late-thanks-to-blogger.html

 

The hard-plastic, painted-polystyrene versions turn-out to have been a troop supplied with this battery-operated ("Bateries not included"!) Power Mite truck. A similar yellow truck with (I think?) cement-mixer OR aggregate-tipper bodies had the six (?), very finely sculpted, 35/40mm construction workers, like Blue Box's copies of Dinky, but much nicer, and very brittle. They may also have had a later, window-box issue? I think a comment on that old post may have been confusing these with the smaller Miniature Masterpiece sets?

 

A reminder of the smallest packaging variant of the Supreme/SP Toys issues.

M is for Marx Space - Moon Men & "Aliens'

So, to the aliens, known in the later (1970/80's) sets as Moon Men, and six of a possible seven poses. I've only ever seen the crawling alien in the gray PVC, and we've seen him, so he got left out!

 

The set of six, in a softish 'Airfix' polyethylene, a bit bright, but not as bright as the orange-red of some of the space stuff, and it's the whole slime-monster lagoon-radioactive-neon lighting trope of a lot of sci-fi - this colour was common on comic art and pulp-paperback jackets, spilling, radiating, blasting or dripping! Even the 'lobby-cards' and posters for black & white movies would have plenty of florescent green, lime green or yellow-green!

 

Compared with the Rex Mars set's versions, and as we'll see in a second, they are 'versions', all six were found in the Rex Mars set, with one or two also found in Tom Corbett or Space Patrol sets.

 

'Big Ears', the only one found in all four sets, and the similarities between this sculpt and the Fireball XL5 character 'Zooney the Lazoon' is almost certainly not a coincidence, as the Anderson's raided the entire 1950/60's toy oeuvre for their various TV series', the fact that they ended up with a character in a 1962 production, which resembles a 1950's space toy from the other side of the pond, is beyond accidental!

 

Note also, all the bases (and feet) are quite different, these are variants, not the same tool . . . with each being re-cut/finished as it was included in whatever set, the six 'ethylene Moon Men having their own tool, leaving the crawling guy in the Tom Corbett set, as the outlier, not included here.

 

I've seen a Tom Corbett Space Academy set, with all three PVC sets, so you got three Big Ears, but helmets for the Rex Mars sculpts only, it had pale-blue 'office furniture' and was dated 1952, ten years before Fireball XL5!! 

 

Likewise, the 'Frogman Assassin'; 

completely different bases on each of my three samples.

 

I already had four of them in a different shade of green, whom I had shot for the archive, and actually found the bag first, whilst putting the others away, then remembered I had shot them, and you can see in the lower image a clear colour variation between them! No accessories in this post; I'd run out of things to pose the figures with by the time I got to these chaps/chapesses/whatever's!

M is for Marx Space - Space Patrol

Some of the stuff which did belong in the box, the Space Patrol figures, and basically a set of generics who could also fatten out sets with the Tom Corbett or Rex Mars figures at their centre. Indeed, they have, pretty much, the same uniforms as the Rex Mars, but make useful 'ground crew' for the Corbett's.

 

Family Photo', I'm missing the two girls, one standing one crawling, and a seated figure (for the 'office furniture'!), and again these seem to be home-painted, and not brilliantly, with the black, particularly, splashed all over the place!

 

One of mine is a heat-shrinkage victim, but as it just makes him look like he's bringing in a still hovering machine, or, waving it away before it hits him, or lands on his noggin, . . . it's quite a cool mistake!

 

I got two each of most (one each of the Aliens) so it would seem to have been a full set, and the missing figures, including a pair of the seated chap, really are missing!

 

The Moonbase station, I think you can mount the 'doughnut' station on the top of this three-part contraption, which looks more like how the V2 ballistic missiles engines were nestled within the rocket's outer casing, than anything else!

 

Fuel storage tanks, I'm missing the pipework for the yellow-green version, but the silver fits, which is useful for photography as without it, the whole moulding rocks like a banana! But, as you can see, it still has its stickers, so is the better example, and the fuels; Oxygen, Hydrogen and Florine, are the same as those labelled on the sides of the 'space tank'er!

M is for Marx Space - Tom Corbett

For years, I thought this was Tom Cobet, I guess you read what you see, and the dyslexia (now known to be Asperger's) may have been a part, but I think a lot of people probably read words, new words that is, or especially names, wrongly! As a kid I read tons of Sci-Fi, and rereading now, you realise how poorly you understood the made-up names of aliens or their planets, and I suspect lots of us do it! Also, some of my LotR/Hobbit name-readings were way off too!

 

Still missing a couple of poses, and I think all the paint's going to have to come off, as I said in the Introduction, Tom Corbett - Space Cadet was a TV serial (as they were called before they became series (UK) or seasons (US)), on all four main US Channels (not just the NBC of my notes), and these uniforms seem to tie-in well, with the costumes of the TV series. The crawling figure, middle left, is an Alien.

 

More here;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Corbett,_Space_Cadet_(TV_series)

 

I already had one of the missing chaps, with the mic, who I seem to have shot twice now, and there were two unpainted figures in the lot, which leaves two other blokes and the single female sculpt to find, I think, but that's the fun of collecting! Throwing money at complete sets, if/when you've got it, gets boring! All mine are PVC, aparently later ones were polyethylene, with bases added to earlier baseless figures.

 

These were pretty ubiquitous I think, and included in lots of the space sets, and while it looks a bit classroomy, they are all mean to be more 'control-room' than office! I think I got the small cabinet of component drawers on its side, without my glasses I thought it was a bookcase full of box-files!

 

Big important machine on the left and uppy-downy-side-to-side radar array to the right, there is a small hole in the top of the giant cash-register, which is for a mesh-cullender-dish type thing, missing from these two examples, but we'll see one in a later part.

 

Educational interactivity was provided by the morse signaler boards, which changed over time, with at least two versions of code sheet. On the right is one missing the code sheet slider-insert.

 

From behind, obviously by sliding them up or down, you can flash morse messages in either red or black, with the printed dots offset by just enough to allow for them all to go white on the push (red), or pull - black.

 

Close-ups of the two different sheets I have, there may be more?

Black includes numerals, red has letters only. 

 

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a big computer or a giant filing-cabinet, or should I lay it flat as a cargo-pod? The beauty of imagination in play! One thing I discovered while shooting all these was that the scenics/accessories were completely replaced over time, apparently by some pretty casual pantographing, resulting in the replacements being smaller all round.

 

Early versions were polystyrene, later stuff is in a tough polyethylene type polymer, with some (the red-orange stuff) having more of the feel of polypropylene?

 

Size difference is quite notable, and while I say I 'discovered' it, I couldn't find anything on the Internet about it, but I'm sure the experts in the defunct Plastic Figure & Playset Collector, or it's still extant offspring, Russel Kern's Playset Magazine will have highlighted such details at some point, and previous to my observations! The Americans take Marx as seriously as the Germans worry about the colour variations of Timpo Apache legs!

1 is for 1st Rack Toy of the New Year!

Just a quickie, picked this up on my rounds the other day, it's BJ Toys again, and a new one on me, sadly the four main figures are a disappointment, but I have been noticing more and more Paint Your Own sets, a trend spotted here a few years ago, with the cheapo'sets in The Works one Christmas, and which have since featured several times a year!

 

And, of course, the real interest here is not the handful of 45mm Matchbox GI copies, but the four 90mm Chinese Army figures, original sculpts, although, sadly hollowed-out behind, so after painting - for display only!

 

But they are dressed as they would have been through the war with Japan (second Sino-Japanese War) and the Civil Wars, in total from 1927-49, and which ultimately brought the Communists to power. A bit different, and hopefully, a sign of interesting things to come, from the Toymen of the Far East?

P is for Polski Sklep . . . They're Everywhere!

After posting those others an hour ago, I remembered I had this chap in the queue, so went off to find the shots in one of the 'Eastie' folders, then thought there were those other three, which I think we've seen before, but anyway, more shots have been fired-off and uploaded, so here's more Polish-made Wellingtonian cavalry!

He's 70mm, with a more 'Spanish' (production) looking horse, and is a lancer officer I think?

 

The other 40mm trio included another-one of the white cuirassiers, so I now have seven of them, and he had a slightly different horse which I gave to the trumpeter, further swapping resulted in this pair being odd-men-out, and the six cuirassier troopers match! Ulan and Hussar here, I think?

 

 

Quick comparison shot!

K is for Kirasjerzy, Polscy Kirasjerzy

And the 14th Regiment of, if my cursory research in anything to go by, and it probably isn't! Looking for something quick to post after work, and these are a 'seen elsewhere', so let's get them in the Tag list here, PZG's Polish Cuirassiers.

I'm not sure if the horses are correctly distributed/allocated, but they all came together, and if I know anything about Wellingtonian troops, it's that musicians often had the odd/opposite colours to everyone else! And they are small, they're only about 40/45mm.

A is for Apollo Astronauts

Is that how you spell astronaut, I wouldn't want to tear the arse out of it . . . "Oh yes you would!". Another box-ticker now, more NASA types, courtesy of Weetabix Weetos breakfast cereal.

 

I have been picking these up for years, and there's a decent enough sample somewhere in the stash, but I didn't have the floating command/return capsule, and for years I kept finding them only in yellow, and had begun to think the other colours might be mythical, however, eventually I started to find the odd red one, then a blue, since the advent of Google and evilBay, they have become common enough to find in all three colours!

These first four came in a while ago, and while the three figures are 'smallish' scale at around 45mm, hence my picking them up over the years, the other three items are 'premium' size, or unit-cost sized! And here we have the command module and mighty Apollo (with extra wings!) in its launch gantry.

These came in at that Autumn show, from which show-report's folder I have been raiding for images recently! The one on the right is my first sample of that sculpt, and the third figure is to the left here, although there are two diminutive frogmen clambering onto the reentry capsule to open the door!

 

I have yet to find any in white, but they seem to be hen's-teeth rare, as usual, the better article is on Cereal Offers, with details of two sculpt changes I haven't even noticed yet, so will have to check against mine when they are all reunited in one place, which will give us an excuse to revistit them!

S is for Sometimes . . .

 . . . I can be a silly-old Hector!

 

Having nearly (there was the forgotten skeletons shot!) managed to get out all the Halloween posts, on Halloween, which included some I was working on the same day, and others which were all together in the 'Halloween 2023' folder which gets added to all year, plus any contributions, the 'special' days become a panic and lead to a sigh of relief if they mostly come off, and having got everything out of Picasa, I was happy.

 

But, I just noticed a folder on the desktop which simply said 'Halloween' and I thought "Oh no, I've forgotten a/some contributions?" (as they tend to end up on the desk-top!), but thankfully it is two fanatsy lots, I'd put on hold for Halloween, and they can go anytime, so here's one!

 

Issued in the mid-late 1980's, you are supposed to get four polyethylene figures in a polystyrene 'toob' made to look like a lookout tower (just the sort of random 'folly' role-players like on the gaming table!), but mine had five if you include the dragon, which we saw here once before, so I must have two, as I know I grabbed that one at random, at the time, and posted it as unknown!

 

The figures are based on old Ral Partha figures I think, or some similar range, Aureola Rococo (minifigs) or AD&D? Pretty sure I had the lizard with a club in that dark-grey whitemetal, it used to oxidise to! And they were sold like this, the lid taped-on over the label, so a counter-top 'outer', with maybe 16 or 20-odd towers?

The four figures from my set, I do have some more, lose, somewhere, but this stuff is all in storage now, however, as always we can rely on Shaun at Fantasy Toy soldiers to show the rest! And a second series, which has escaped me entirely! He also thinks the contents sometimes exceeded the stated number, good way to get kids to go back for another set, I guess - convince them they are getting a 'forbidden' bargain?

The other side of the dragon!

100 is for Pipers, Four Pipers!

We saw their board game I think, right back at the start of the Blog, so they've been sat there in the Tag-list ever since with a '1' in brackets, let's make it a two with these charmers, which I picked-up on evilBay a while back.

A blended whiskey, originally from the House of Segram (of the whacky buildings), it's now manufactured in Asia/the Far East, where it's one of the best-selling brands.

Added when doing the tags - no, we haven't? Must have been One Inch Warrior or something? Maybe we saw some of the figures in a plunder post, and they weren't tagged? I'll have to blog them at the other end! It was a boardgame anyway!

Flats, but chunky enough to be semi-flats, these cocktail stirrers, or 'swizzle sticks' could be cut to provide figures of around 45mm, and will have been manufactured by some anonymous local fabricator whose name we'll never know.

 

Worth a mention, to explain the previous line, when I worked at Rotamould (97'ish?), we had another plastics factory a few doors away, and when I worked in an office down the road a few years later there was an injection moulder in the unit ('lot' as the Americans would call it) next door, they have all gone now. While when I found Tatra, their website had a list of the 15-odd companies they had bough-out over a period of about 30 years, they've now been bought-out themselves.

 

Many people were responsible for the more ephemeral figures/figurals out there, and one can only hope they have another moniker to be known by, as in here, where 100 Pipers will suffice!

B is for Brenner?

Sorry, got a bit lazy after the Pirate-fest! It's always nice to add a new name to the tag-list, or sum-total of the hobby's knowledge, and to add two, unrelated lines in the same post is a bargain-bonus! Except there is a US Toy in the tag-list already

 

One of those situations where I sort of knew I knew, but couldn't remember where from. Turned-out it was an old dealer list from the 1990's which either Paul Morehead or John Begg gave me a very 'black' (no contrast whatsoever) photocopy of a copy, years ago.

 

Warrior Ants from US Toy (Brenner) is what I have, and of course, trying to Google US Toy just gets you a million US toys, same on evilBay and Etsy, so what was a patriotic company name back in the pre-internet days, is now a liability lost in a miasma of Adsense, Google-Ads, spam Ad's, hidden-Ad's. pop-up's and all the other marketing shite which has been tacked-on-to/embedded-in the Internet in the last 15-years!

 

However, they are still going and have a lot of novelty/party/rack toy stuff, including some of the figures featured in Plastic Warrior magazine (courtesy of Les White in the magazine, Brian Berke, here, the tag mentioned above - firefighters), a few years ago, but not, sadly, either of these sets, I don't know the significance of the Brenner in brackets, as annotated in the old dealer list, but will add it as a seperate tag?

Aren't they brilliant, probably taking-off the insect movies of the 1990's; such as Bugs Life  and Antz (both 1998, which may help date them) rather than the earlier Hasbro/GiG franchise Army Ants/Kombatini, there is also something of the Trigan Empire about their Greco-Roman get-up, but I accept it's a tenuous link, verging more on wishful thinking!

 

As is often the case, Shaun at Fantasy Toy Soldiers is the only other source of info' on them and he has had them as unknown, for some time, which I've just been over and solved, but a larger sample, with a better selection of colours.

 

Also credited to US Toy (Brenner) is this set of anything but grey 'Grey Aliens', in a palate of lovely metallic shades. A bit bigger that the Warrior Ants at around 54mm vs. 45mm, and both sets are supposed to have eight poses for a full set, ants in four pastel shades (I have no green ones, yet!) and hopefully each of the aliens available in all six of these shades?

 

Seen elsewhere only the other day, a quick alien comparison with, on the left an unknown 65mm, glow-in-the-dark figure (I may have a note on them somewhere?), the silver chap is a pencil-top, we saw the next two here (Soma on the left, Imperial on the right), then the US Toy (Brenner) and finally a counter-top/point-of-sale type, pick-tray/carton novelty, 45mm alien of unknown brand'age!